Selling without Feeling Sales-y | Interview on the Selling with Love Podcast

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0:37Hey there, welcome to the Jasmine Starr Show. My name is Amanda. I'm a community admin at Social Curator, and I'm excited to tell you about today's episode with Jason Mark Campbell. Jason is a sales genius and host of the Selling with Love podcast, where he shares top strategies for small business owners to embrace the art of selling as a way to transform lives. Jason recently invited Jasmine on his podcast and their conversation was so good, we just had to share it with you. If you're ready to learn about pricing, copywriting, and how to sell with authenticity, get ready to take some notes. Let's listen in.

1:14Super excited to have you, Jasmine. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much. I'm very honored to be here. It's an honor to have you here. And maybe you'll correct me, but I was doing a little bit of research and, you know, you talk about turning your passion into profits. And I find that it must have been an interesting journey for you to be on this, call it cookie cutter path, studying law, having kind of this career outline. You know, you become partner. Law is a pretty straightforward to success kind of path. But here you are, you took a pause and you went into the path of entrepreneurship. I'd love for you to kind of take us back there and tell us how easy or hard of a decision that was.

1:50I think it was equal parts easy and equal parts hard. The easy part about that decision was that I was really unhappy with where I was in life. And I never stopped to ask myself why. Like, why was I in law school? What did I actually want to do with the legal career? I am the daughter of an immigrant. And so I just figured, well, education is the way that you get to where you want to go. And so I continued down the education track, never really pausing to actually think what was my purpose? What's my driving force? Where would I be the most fulfilled? So in that way, sure, it's easy to have this coming to of a decision.

2:22And then it's really difficult because I had never seen anybody in my family ever start a business. And I know it seems very hard for people to understand, but I was 26 years old and I didn't know a single person in my life who had a business. So somebody having a business was the equivalent of meeting an Olympian or an NBA star or the president of the United States. I had never had that happen in my life. So for me to actually say, oh, I want to be an entrepreneur, I actually think that that's putting too much credence on what the decision was. The decision was I wasn't even using the vernacular entrepreneur.

2:53It was kind of like, well, there is something I'm passionate about and I want to become a photographer. I don't have a camera. But do I think that if I had the tools, I could actually be successful? And still in the terms of business, I'm not thinking in that way quite yet. I am thinking in terms of what's actually going to happen when it needs to happen and can I make money by way of this. So for me, I was working a job as well as trying to start my photography business and get it off the ground. And so in that regard, I didn't put monetary pressure on what at the time I didn't know was a business.

3:30It was, can I do something I love and find a way to make money. It wasn't until doing it for a year. My first year being a photographer, I made over $100 ,000. And that's when I started realizing, oh, I think that this is a business. And that's when I started changing my whole belief system around that. Wow, that's amazing. And you know, by photographer, I think you're being humble as well. You're one of the top wedding photographers around and your craft was so perfected that you were requested around the world to do work. And so as such, I just want to highlight that because a lot of us maybe focus on the business aspect and the entrepreneurial aspect, the things around marketing, sales.

4:05Yet in your case, it seems like you were more focused on the craft without an awareness of these other elements. Did you see that as an advantage or a disadvantage? It's crazy. Depending on where our paths intersect on the journey, I think that people now would say, well, Jasmine's definitely more, at the time, was more considerate and considering of the art. And if you had met me early on in my journey, a lot of the biggest critiques from other photographers was that I didn't care enough about the art, that I was really focused on the marketing. And I think that at the time, I didn't know anything about marketing.

4:39I didn't know anything about business. And I knew nothing about photography. So in my mind, I just studied the most I could. And then at different times in my life and my career, I flexed different muscles. Like early in the career, I was hellbent on the craft. And I wasn't even thinking about a business because I wasn't even sure it could be a business. My first objective was to figure out, can I actually be the type of creative that somebody would pay? And that's where I started focusing. And then it kind of pivoted from there. That thing you just said right there, I think is key. And it was one of the missing pieces I see for a lot of people who might be struggling is just understanding if somebody will pay for the value that I'm looking to provide with my craft.

5:15And I find that if you don't nail that pretty quickly, it makes you actually struggle, maybe even waste money trying to build up something you haven't even validated that idea. And now that you're doing so much around personal branding, social media, marketing, and sales. Could you elaborate more about what are the things that you should look for when you're trying to get those first customers to pay you to see that, oh my God, I'm on the right track of something or, hey, I think I might be wasting my time here. I'd love for you to push back on my approach. It was only my approach. So looking back and I'm like, could I have done things differently?

5:47Perhaps. Could I have done them better? Perhaps. I was being guided by forces of the market that were outside of me. So my perspective of money was also wildly different than the average person because I literally came from nothing. My father came from Mexico, immigrated from Mexico. My mom came from Puerto Rico. They met on the streets of East Los Angeles. And even though my dad worked four or five jobs, money was so tight in our household because he didn't learn how to read until he was like, goodness gracious, like 25 or 26 years old. So he was teaching myself and my twin sister how to read and he was improving his skills at the time.

6:20So we're talking about a very blue collar worker working multiple jobs and having five children. So money for me was always something limited. I lived in a home full of love, but not much full of anything else. And so in my mind, when I started my business, it wasn't like, oh, I need to make$85 ,000 for this to be a visit. It was literally like, what would my time be worth to do something I love? And so in the beginning, I worked a lot for free. I just wanted to get comfortable in being able to charge somebody. And then I started very, very, very low. Like people often ask me, regardless of the business that they start, it's like, what should I set my pricing as?

6:57And my general rule of thumb is set it for as low as you're comfortable with. I didn't say set it low. I just said set it as low as you're comfortable with. Now, this is not a general rule of thumb for you to run your businesses for years on end. But in order to get that first customer, because the first customer will guide you with what you need to provide for the second, third, fourth, fifth, tenth, two hundredth. And over time, you continuously increase your prices based on how you're learning, what you're doing and how you're improving your craft and how you're investing back in the business.

7:28So for me, I just asked myself, what is it going to be worth for me to get somebody to sit in front of my camera? And if it was a portrait session, I think I started somewhere in the ballpark of 75 or a hundred dollars. Now, that was a lot more than I was making on a per hour basis. And as my career grew from there, I was able to increase my prices slowly over time as the demand increased and as I got better. It's hard to push back on your ideas because I have to say I'm so aligned with it because I also suggest to people, it's like, hey, at the beginning, you need your case studies. You need to have experience.

7:58You need to prove. And the case studies is funny, right? We're like, oh my God, nobody wants to buy from me because they can't see my case studies. And I've realized that no, you have struggles to sell because you haven't seen the case studies for yourself. and so it becomes a race to serve and I love that you're bringing that ideology and I hadn't heard it framed that way before is pricing as low as you're comfortable with and as your comfort level actually shows that you get busier. I can just recall one of my good friends Miriam, she was doing some consulting and she was doing free sessions and got so burnt out.

8:28She was like, my calendar's full, I'm helping all these people for free. I was like, you got to start charging more, that's your natural filter and I'm assuming that when you went on your journey of photography, Like you could not be comfortable charging$75 per portrait when you had a lineup of people waiting for that work to be done. So in order for you to be comfortable, your price had to rise. And I find that's just a beautiful part of the journey. And often one that, you know, I think I'm a bit to blame. You might be a bit to blame as well, Jasmine, because there's so much marketing that's out there that says, you know, sell high ticket products, get paid what you're worth, etc.

9:03etc. And it's almost like we want a shortcut to the space where we're making abundance, we're like very comfortable with our craft. And I'm just wondering, in your case, when you see somebody trying to aim for those shortcuts, do you have some words of advice for someone to realize there's some necessary steps that need to happen? Well, if there's somebody who's listening, we have to first wonder, are they cognizant of the shortcut? Without cognizance, there's not going to be an awakening to change. And so first and foremost, we actually have to identify that there are, traditionally speaking, very few people who could ever go from a low ticket to a high ticket.

9:40And as tempting as it sounds and as amazing as your offer is, statistically, the people who can jump from a low ticket to a high ticket is probably, I'm guessing, less than 1%. And so if we're going to play the odds, the odds would make the most sense to build out concentric circles that move your audience with your growth, not cut out an entire audience that can transition with your growth. So if you think about this as not from a place of how do I get more money in the short term, we want to think of this as how do I increase the lifetime value of somebody who bought from me once? Because a person who's bought from you once has a much higher likelihood of buying from you in the future.

10:21But what you need to do is offer like a pyramid structure for this person to grow alongside you, not to cut out the bottom of the pyramid who actually are helping you get to the next level. So I don't look at this as you're capable of a high ticket offer. I just think there's a lot more room to growth. So just imagine, just for math's sake, you have 10 clients who pay you$100 and then you have a high ticket offer of$10 ,000. Well, of the people who paid$100, maybe there's one person who can afford the$10 ,000. So if we just lay this out. There's 10 people who paid$100. That's$1 ,000. And then one person who then bought the$10 ,000 offer.

11:00In totality, you've made an$11 ,000 transaction. So half of you is thinking, wow, I just got$10 ,000. Now, let me pose a different scenario. Along this growth pyramid toward the top, you have a$100 offer, and then you have a$500 offer, a$1 ,500 offer, and a$7 ,500 offer. If you were to take half of the people who bought the 100 and move them up the pyramid with you, you have an overall gain over time. The question then becomes, are you willing to work through and build the pyramid so that when that$10 ,000 offer comes, you haven't cut out 90 % of your available leads, you're actually taking the leads alongside you.

11:44So over time, it's amplified. I love that methodology because I think there's a lot that we have to do with meeting people where they're at financially. And by having these different tiers, you actually get to offer the level of service and support that people are looking for based on their current financial situation. Everyone's situation is different. And I actually really love that approach that you share. And I kind of wanted to dig a bit more about these skills that you have now and you advocate a lot around personal branding, you know, social media. I don't know if you're still doing a lot of the photography or do you still keep that on the side as well?

12:15Well, I always said that I was a photographer before anybody considered me a photographer. And regardless of how labels will be applied, I will always be a photographer. I have all of my camera gear. I still shoot for a social curator. I'm CEO of social curator. I still take photographs of my loved ones, my daughter, my husband, my friends. And so for all intents and purposes, you could likely write on my tombstone, photographer, even if nobody else called me that. So yes, 100%, I identify that as such. Well, I find that it's amazing, especially in an age where we're doing a lot of video content, like whether it's the YouTube, the socials, etc.

12:48You know, I did not have a background in photography at all. But as I started putting my message out there, I realized, oh, one of the important skills I can have is understanding how cameras lighting my audio works. So that ended up being complimentary. Now, I'd be curious to know what are other key complimentary skills, regardless of the business that you're in, that you find are most relevant in 2023 to allow you to be more likely to succeed or just more successful in general? Copywriting, hands down, all day, every day. I know that at the top of the marketing food chain, video is at the top.

13:21But I started my career as a photographer leveraging copy. And I did that because I didn't have anything else. I didn't have any money. I had dropped out of law school. I had no money. My husband was a startup company. I was working part-time. I was saving every single penny I could to rent camera gear because I couldn't afford it. So I would rent camera gear, go to the shoot, return the camera gear the next day, and then save up the cash from the shoot over time to reinvest and get my own gear. So I didn't even actually have a full set of gear as a photographer for well into my second year of business.

13:56But I also never went in debt. I never took a loan. I paid for everything on my own. I'm very proud of that fact because I never wanted to put pressure on my business that all of a sudden I was like handcuffed or chokehold until paying somebody back or getting interest and then forcing myself to take any client I had to because I had a loan to pay off. For me, it would harm the creative process. And so I kind of played it safe in the beginning. And dang it, I got off track. What was the original question? I was just asking you about the key skills that you need. And you spoke coffee. Oh, yes. Yes.

14:30So I couldn't even afford a website. And so there was a free thing called Blogger. And I just titled the blog Jasmine Star Photography. And I started writing copy even without photos. And so I was just writing copy. And then over time, I was able to upload photos that I was taking and I was sharing the journey. And what I started realizing was that people are connected to written word because they can consume it most often faster than they can consume a video. and even though technology has changed a lot and even though people are arguing hillbent right now in 2023 that copy means nothing because AI is doing so much of it what I would venture to say that without a top layer of original written content you can then leverage that in an entirely different way on top of an AI layer but if you don't have any originating content then what you're just doing is spewing out the same thing that AI is spitting out for everybody else AI is going to become a powerful vehicle once you add a layer of your own writing, your own thoughts, and then AI will take all of that, distill it down, add and fill in gaps and help you run faster in creating the copy.

15:35But your written word is going to be the thing and the linchpin that ties not just a great video together. Like oftentimes on Instagram, if I post a reel, it's great that the reel gets a lot of views. But I've actually realized that the people who read the copy and then respond, where there is a much deeper, richer dialogue that then parlays itself into direct messages. And direct messages are like a lily pad to actually closing sales regardless of the ticket size. And so for me, it's not just having a really cool photo or a really cool video. It's what am I doing with the copy to contextualize?

16:07And now, you know, Instagram is having captions that are readable by the search mechanisms. And so if you're just doing like hashtag OOTD, like outfit of the day or hashtag nom, nom, nom, that's fine if somebody's looking for outfit of the day and that's fine if somebody's looking for nom nom nom based on your lunch but there is an opportunity for you to create searchable content in addition to the visual content that would allow you to have more people discover what it is you're doing so do I sound bullish on copy? Absolutely but I also think that outside of social platforms when you could put it on a blog when you could use it in show notes as for a podcast when you can send it in a newsletter you go very deep with those relationships and it's deep relationships that actually transition to sales, not snazzy, cool writing copy that gets them where it's hot.

16:51It's the long-term lead up to the sale. I'm glad you're bullish on that. I'm glad you're saying that and reminding people of its importance because you're right. The buzz around ChatGPT and all the AI tools that are making the writing so much more efficient makes us forget that there's a core essence of ourselves that goes in every word that we put out as well. I have to say one of the mistakes I made in my business too early is I was trying to put together some email sequences and I had a very amazing colleague who he was really adamant. He was really excited about writing the copy and he just wrote it.

17:25And every time I looked at it, I was like, something's off. And I felt bad about feedbacking because he was doing a great job and he was doing so much stuff and he was writing it. And I did think it was terrible, but something was off. And I realized that it's because the way that he would write copy was about his essence and it wasn't my essence. And I think that there's such a relevance to the personal brand that you build, especially if you're an author, an expert, or someone that's trying to put their message out there and your voice, your face, and your written word represents who you are.

17:57I think that's one of the things I actually had to pull it back indoors. I had to actually start being, because I know how to write copy, but I got lazy and I got complacent and that's on me. And so when I started writing the messages myself and when I got people replying to me just saying like, wow, that really spoke to me. And I was like, wow, I think that was a corner I tried to cut too quick. And I'm glad that you're here to remind it. And I think it's a powerful reminder for anybody who's listening in. But I want to be very clear though. One thing real quick is I'm not an advocate for not outsourcing or letting it go because as business owners, our job is to create a vision.

18:32And then our job is to do as many things in the business until we can't until we could hire somebody who could do what we do the same level or better than us. And so then we begin to replace ourselves in our own business because I hear a lot of people say, oh, my business is my baby. And I love that. I truly do. But I don't want to raise a baby for 18 years. Like I want to raise a baby that turns into a human. Right. So it's like you want things to develop and you want to love it and develop with it, not continue to hold a newborn baby for 18 years. And so in my mind, I look at the business and be like, I need to create a structure that at one point the business can work without me.

19:10And so if I am bullish on copy and I am, what I am thinking is, let me work in the long term vision. Do I think that in the future I could have somebody who's a powerful copywriter who understands my voice? If the answer is yes. And for me, I believe that there are better copywriters who will understand my voice. But in order for me to set them up to succeed, it's not enough to be a great copywriter. It's not enough to understand my voice. What they need to do is understand the nuances and what is valuable to me. And so if I write a piece of copy that I start seeing is resonating on social media, I'll put it in a file and I'll label it like newsletter or social post.

19:41And then like two ideas like or two reasons why I thought it worked or two things that people were responding about it. And so then what I'm going to do is create an archive and notion and I'll go through and I'm like, these are copywriting standards. I'm like, this one did well because of this. This one did well because of this. And so what I'm going to do in the future, whenever we expand the team in that way, I'm like, you're going to sit with me and we're going to write. We're going to write a long time. And then we're going to go back to the standards and I'm going to give you a newsletter or a test blog or I'm going to give you a podcast that I've recorded with Jason.

20:08And what I want you to do is listen to the podcast. I want to take the big ideas and I want you to create a newsletter or create a blog post around this. Why? I want the SEO copy. I want to be able to link to your podcast when people are searching for sales and they happen to come across the copy and you can really SEO works on copy. And so all of a sudden, if this copywriter can take this interview from my words, understand how I write, understand what's resonating, and they put together a piece of content. My vision is that I'm going to get it back and I'm like, this is like I wrote it. I have to believe that or else I'm going to be like, I got to write a copy for the next 25 years in addition to doing all these other things.

20:41The answer for me as a visionary CEO is not that, but to build the systems now for the business I want to build in the future. I'm going to be sitting on the side of the listeners here and taking lots of notes because I'm so glad you made this injection and you're right. I'm so glad you did that because I realized that I haven't done the proper tracking of my own methods. And I think the reason that the person didn't succeed is because I didn't set them up for success. And so I'm hoping for anybody else who's paying attention that you're getting the same types of insights as me. You're taking some notes on things you'll be able to do when you go back into your business.

21:11And everything that we're hearing so far is absolute gold for me. I hope it's resonating and hitting as hard for you as you're listening from wherever you are. Jasmine, this is amazing. What are the best ways that people could connect with you? Like, I know we have your podcast. I know there's your website, but what are the things you're most excited about presenting to people this year? For 2023, my word is, so I always have a word of the year, an intention. And the word comes to me and years it's been a variety of words. One year it was surrender. Another year it was self-love. Another year it was trust.

21:44And so this year my word is rebirth. And I kind of just grappled with it. I'm like, what does this word actually mean? And so the way that I am choosing to or interpret it, is there was the old me and there is the new me. And 2023 is the new version of me. So when you ask, what are you most excited about? I can honestly look across the internet and tell you, I am excited for the person and the version I am to become. And until I feel really self-sustained, my feet deeply rooted, until that point, what I am most excited for is to continue to create and help other people without expectation. So there is the, oh, that's such a great thing.

22:25She wants to help people. And then there's also the business strategy side of it. And a brand is not your logo and your brand is not your website and a brand is not your typography that you use or business cards. A brand is what somebody says about you when you're not in the room. A brand is what somebody feels about you. A brand is when somebody says your business name and or your name, somebody says, wow, amazing. That's a brand. A brand is when you are looking for a photographer, a chiropractor, a dentist, a course creator. A brand is why somebody would pick your offering versus a litany of others is because you made them think or feel a certain way.

23:06And so I don't know who this new version of me is quite yet, but I do know that myself and everybody else who is listening right now, We have the capacity to make somebody feel something. And the way that we make somebody feel something is to identify a desire. And as you identify that desire and you speak to it and you share freely of what you are learning or what you're going through or what you have done. And somebody says, I, too, have identified in that struggle. And this person gave me something and saw me where I am. They cannot help but feel a sense of gratitude and a deadness and like, I want to support this person.